CITYWIDE

CITY CREATES RAT CONTROL AGENCY

City health officials said yesterday that they would ramp up pest-control programs and start an “academy” to deal with the rat problem. During a City Council hearing, a deputy commissioner at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Edgar Butts, said the city received a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to establish the “first integrated pest-management rodent control academy” in the country.

The agency will be implementing the program, which includes a rodent “indexing” system, over the next three years. It will provide training for all city agencies and inspectors in how best to control rodents. The department will focus on problem neighborhoods by deploying inspectors in clusters to index rat food sources and rat burrows.

Roughly 80% of pest-control abatement will be centered on neighborhoods with bad rodent problems. Health officials said they would start those efforts in Bronx. The agency is also going to have monitoring stations to keep watch on the rat population so it knows how to respond.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MILLER RAISES $5.7M

Campaign officials announced yesterday that the speaker of the City Council, Gifford Miller, had raised the $5.7 million he is allowed for the mayoral primary and that he would turn his attention to raising money for a general election.

Mr. Miller, one of four Democrats seeking the party nomination to take on Mayor Bloomberg, is the leader in fund-raising and the first Democrat to raise the maximum in primary funds. Officials for the other Democrats did not disclose how much they have raised yesterday. They have until Tuesday to file with the city’s Campaign Finance Board. Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire, does not participate in the public program.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MANHATTAN

CLINTON EMERGES FROM CHEST SURGERY

Surgeons successfully removed fluid and scar tissue from President Clinton’s chest cavity yesterday, cleaning up complications from the former president’s heart bypass operation of six months ago.

Mr. Clinton was “awake and resting comfortably” after four hours of surgery, said the president of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, Herbert Pardes. “We expect Mr. Clinton to be walking” within 24 hours.

His wife, Senator Clinton, and daughter, Chelsea, were with him and were said to be elated by the successful surgery and a prognosis from one of his surgeons for an “even better than a full recovery.”

Dr. Pardes said Mr. Clinton, 58, was expected to spend three to 10 more days in the hospital. A tube to drain fluid from the left lung will be removed in two to five days. In a rare complication from his bypass surgery in September, scar tissue had developed because of fluid buildup and inflammation, causing compression and the collapse of the lower lobe of Mr. Clinton’s left lung.

– Associated Press

MORGENTHAU PROPOSES LEGISLATIVE CHANGES ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau offered yesterday a three pronged legislative proposal designed to increase the protection of domestic violence victims, even on the Internet.

The points of the proposal call for considering the victim’s safety in deciding bail for alleged batterers, allowing a judge to extend orders of protection for up to 10 years and beyond if necessary, and making cyber-stalking a crime.

Bail is set in criminal cases to assure that a defendant will return to court when scheduled. But Mr. Morgenthau says his proposal would allow a judge to consider any history of threats, acts of violence, or violation of protective orders by the defendant.

Terms for orders of protection are set by law – one year after a violation conviction, three years for a misdemeanor, and five years after a felony. Mr. Morgenthau’s proposal would allow protective orders of up to 10 years or more.

– Associated Press